Tightening alternator belts on 310TD

[mayco]

I installed new alternator belts last fall when i had the the whole front end of the moho removed down to the motor. Grill, tranny cooler, radiator, and everything else was removed for some motor repairs. Well now i need to get at the belts to tighten them up after the new belts have stretched a bit. Do any of you folks have any tricks you use to get at these suckers. It looks like ill need to remove the front motor cover for sure to access them from the inside but i am wondering if you all have any suggestions on the best way to get at em. Inside, underneath, etc. definately looks like a two person job, matbe one inside and one underneath. I dont think i can get at them at all from the front hood. Your experience????

[mayco]

Well that was a heck of a lot easier than i had thought it was gonna be. For some reason i thought that i remembered that the alternator was a lot further towards the front of the rig and was gonna be a bear to get to. No wonder no one responded to my initial question. Hahahaha. Oh well, glad its done.

[mprokop87]

I wish I would have seen this earlier! I used my tire iron to put some tension on the belt and used the other hand to tighten the bolts. Make sure that your pulley on the alternator is SMOOTH! Otherwise it will wear the belt out prematurely and you wont get any charge once it snaps, take this from experience. I currently need to pull my alternator and refinish the pulley and replace the belt i bought a few hundred miles ago.

[idroba]

Originally Posted by mprokop87

I wish I would have seen this earlier! I used my tire iron to put some tension on the belt and used the other hand to tighten the bolts. Make sure that your pulley on the alternator is SMOOTH! Otherwise it will wear the belt out prematurely and you wont get any charge once it snaps, take this from experience. I currently need to pull my alternator and refinish the pulley and replace the belt i bought a few hundred miles ago.

Mayco has a turbo diesel engine and the alternators and belt system is much different than the 454 in your Argosy. But I agree, a good pulley and good alignment of the pulley system is critical on the 454. And unfortunately it is getting harder to get good quality replacement V belts for some of the older engines, although the 454 should still have a lot of options available.

[mayco]

Vbeltsupply.com is having one heck of a sale right now.

[DaveFL]

Originally Posted by mayco

Vbeltsupply.com is having one heck of a sale right now.

Thanks for the updates, but other than the number of miles on new belts how did you determine the need to tighten? on old vbelt I remember squeal on belts, deflected a specific area and knew tension was right, not being able to see or put in a torque wrench, what did you use?

[mayco]

I put new belts on in july or so last summer. We put a few hundred miles on the coach since then. Recently, While doing some other motor related maintenance i checked the tension on the belts by hand and they had stretched a bit and were loose enough that i wanted to tighten them up. When i had installed the new belts i had the whole front end of the engine compartment out, grill, radiator, transmision cooler, everything back to the motor. So, the install was easy with all that out of the way. When i went to retighten, it was the first time i had attempted this from the inside of the coach. I was thinking it was going to be a bear to get to but as it turned out it wasnt bad at all. My dear wife helped by placing a pry bar in the necessary position to apply tension while i worked the wrenches. No biggy